DOOLEY: Tell me he’s asleep. NURSE: Doctor Byers saw to that. Gave him Percocet before she left. DOOLEY: If I were her, and he called me in at two in the morning, I would have killed him. (SFX: FLAMES EXPLODE) (DOOLEY AND CORPSMAN RUSH TO THE DOOR)

TONY: Ho! You got here quick. Where were you? KATE: Home asleep. TONY: Asleep, maybe. But not at home. I got you on your cell. KATE: Drop it, DiNozzo. TONY: Do not make this a challenge, Kate. I will find out. Oh boy. (CAR BRAKES TO A STOP) GIBBS: See ya. TONY: Looks like you and I were the only ones flying solo last night, McGee. MCGEE: Speak for yourself. (TO GIBBS) Morning, Boss. GIBBS: Where? KATE: First floor. A-wing. TONY: Some kind of explosion. Guy went up in flames.

CUT TO:

INT. HOSPITAL CORRIDOR – DAY

GIBBS: Name? TONY: Commander Michael Dornan, Safety Officer on the Kennedy. GIBBS: Which just got back from the Gulf. TONY:` Yeah, Friday. He’d been complaining of chest pains. Had open heart surgery four days ago. The doctor who led the team that operated on him is on the way in. GIBBS: I’ll talk to him. TONY: That would be a her, boss. Commander Janice Byers.

CUT TO:

INT. HOSPITAL ROOM – DAY

TONY: Oh! That had to hurt. GIBBS: What started the fire, Duck? DUCKY: The source of the conflagration appears to be internal. The majority of the damage is confined to the torso. KATE: He was receiving oxygen through a nasal canula. DUCKY: Still it would have needed a source of ignition, and I seriously doubt it could have caused this kind of damage. KATE: Could he have been smoking in bed? TONY: The Corpsman saw him ten seconds before the explosion. Dornan was out cold. MCGEE: Boss, listen, I know this may sound far fetched, but… GIBBS: Will you spit it out, McGee? MCGEE: Spontaneous human combustion. GIBBS: (BEAT) Where’s the surgeon? TONY: She’s in the waiting room. Just got here. (TO MCGEE) Probie, what are you thinking? Spontaneous human combustion? It’s an urban myth. DUCKY: Actually, Tony, we shouldn’t disregard the notion. Stories of the phenomenon go way back to the Bible in fact. But it wasn’t popularized until Dickens. JIMMY: Charles Dickens? DUCKY: Yes, he used spontaneous combustion to kill off one of his characters, Mister Krook, in the novel Bleak House. It caused a minor uproar. Dickens was accused of perpetuating the age-old superstition. TONY: I saw that movie. DUCKY: The silent version or the British miniseries? TONY: They were talking.

CUT TO:

INT. WAITING ROOM – DAY

BYERS: Commander Dornan was complaining of pain. He insisted the night staff call me in. GIBBS: Insisted? BYERS: The Commander liked to throw his weight around – especially with the junior nurses and the corpsmen. GIBBS: Normal post op pain? BYERS: To appease him I did an echocardiogram and he was fine. I gave him a Percocet for the pain so he could fall asleep. DUCKY: Ah… Jethro, I’ll be-- GIBBS: You headed back? DUCKY: Yeah.

GIBBS: Commander Byers, this is Doctor Mallard, our M.E. DUCKY: Hi. GIBBS: Doctor Byers is the surgeon that operated on the victim. DUCKY: Oh! GIBBS: Doctor Mallard is a man of few words. I don’t have any more questions for you right now, Doctor. Thank you for your time. BYERS: Sure. (GIBBS WALKS O.S.) DUCKY: What exactly was the procedure? BYERS: Aortic valve repair. DUCKY: Congenital aortic stenosis? BYERS: Acquired. DUCKY: And the prognosis? BYERS: Everything went real well. I was expecting Commander Dornan to be back on active duty in two months. DUCKY: Oh, thank you. Uh… I may have to ask you a question or two after the autopsy. BYERS: I’ll give you my numbers. (KATE YAWNS) TONY: It’s too bad you didn’t get to bed at a sensible hour. I mean sleep because obviously you were in bed. KATE: I get it, Tony. GIBBS: McGee. MCGEE: Yeah, boss? GIBBS: Stay here. Meet with the engineers and the plant manager. I want this oxygen system completely checked out. MCGEE: On it, boss. GIBBS: Everything in this room goes back to Abby. KATE: Everything? (BEAT) Right. GIBBS: Hey. Background the victim. KATE: This is the beginning of a very long day. TONY: Yeah. Too bad you had such a short night.

CUT TO:

INT. AUTOPSY ROOM – DAY

DUCKY: I must say I was very intrigued by your doctor. I’m not quite sure why. Did you find her that way, too? JIMMY: It looks like he burned from the inside out. DUCKY: He does, doesn’t he, Mister Palmer? Oh, that’s the remains of his stomach. Make sure they get to Abigail for content analysis. JIMMY: Um… Doctor? DUCKY: Yes? JIMMY: Does it help you to talk to them? DUCKY: They’re still human. Well what we do is very invasive and impersonal. It helps me establish a relationship.

ABBY: I can show you photos of what was left of a two hundred and forty pound woman. GIBBS: Yeah, but you won’t. ABBY: She was sitting in a chair. All that was left were blackened seat springs, a section of backbone, one foot still in a satin slipper, and ten pounds of ashes. The rest of her apartment was untouched. GIBBS: Abby, you know what? Just tell me what caused the explosion. ABBY: Ooh. A bribe. That always works. So I checked out all the electrical equipment from the hospital trying to find the source of the ignition. Nothing. Everything’s in perfect working order, including this monitor which recorded the victim’s vitals up until the point of blast off. GIBBS: Huh. ABBY: Somebody went a little postal with the fire extinguisher. It complicates finding trace evidence. GIBBS: The Commander was being barbecued. I doubt they were concerned with forensics. ABBY: True. GIBBS: You don’t know what caused the explosion? ABBY: Other than S-H-C? GIBBS: All right. Get with Ducky. Maybe together you can solve it. ABBY: Roger that. When he’s finished slicing and dicing, we’ll go bang heads. GIBBS: Don’t cause any sparks.

CUT TO:

INT. SQUAD ROOM – DAY

KATE: (INTO PHONE) No, that’s more than enough for now. Thanks for your time, Doctor. TONY: I was thinking of becoming a doctor. KATE: You? A doctor? TONY: Anthony DiNozzo, comma, M.D. KATE: Let me guess. A gynecologist? TONY: Ooh. No, I was thinking more dermatologist. Normal hours. Big bucks. Never an emergency. I mean, nobody ever died from a zit. MCGEE: I had a terrible case of acne as a kid. TONY: Of course you did, Probie. MCGEE: Boss, plant engineer says that oxygen is supplied to the rooms through a central system. They did a complete check and everything was in order. TONY: Day shift concurred with night shift. The Commander was a pain in the ass. KATE: Divorced, ten years ago. No kids. Wife’s happily remarried living in Santa Fe. Um… parents are retired. One sister. And they’re being notified by CACO. DiNozzo! (SFX: CELL PHONE CHIMES B.G.) TONY: Harrison? KATE: (V.O.) Hi. TONY: It’s Harrison. KATE: (INTO PHONE) Um… I’m glad you called.

CUT TO:

INT. NCIS LAB – NIGHT

DUCKY: I never cease to be amazed by your skill, Abby. You know, when I was a young M.E., we used to recreate crime scenes using interns. ABBY: You also used to listen to records and do the jitterbug. DUCKY: Actually, I was quite the hoofer. (DUCKY DANCES/ HUMS) GIBBS: Let’s see it, Abs. ABBY: Based on the condition of the body, the burn patterns, and the debris scatter, we were able to recreate the explosion. TONY: Doesn’t tell us much. ABBY: Watch when I rotate it one eighty and play it in slo-mo. That’s the point of ignition.

KATE: What caused the explosion? ABBY: Well, this was taken from that area of the mattress. DUCKY: I also provided Abby with epidermal scrapings from the victim’s upper left torso. ABBY: And the spectrometer found minute traces of antimony sulfide and potassium chlorate on both. MCGEE: Matches. ABBY: Light my fire, McGee! GIBBS: Someone struck a match and ignited the oxygen. TONY: Well, according to the corpsman, the Commander was asleep. ABBY: This was no accident, Gibbs. Barbeque Boy – he was murdered.

(MUSIC OUT)

FADE IN:

EXT. NCIS BUILDING – DAY

GIBBS: Get back to Bethesda. Review their security…

CUT TO:

INT. SQUAD ROOM – DAY

GIBBS: … tapes. Find out how someone got into that hospital room and then managed to get out without being seen. MCGEE: On it, boss. GIBBS: Start a timeline. Twenty four hours before the explosion. I want to know every doctor, nurse, orderly, and visitor that went into that hospital room. You two are going to Norfolk. Dornan had spent the last nine months on the Kennedy. TONY: I’ll get the car. KATE: What are you so jazzed about? GIBBS: He knows that the first person you’ll be talking to is the NCIS Agent Afloat, Special Agent Paula Cassidy. KATE: (CHUCKLES) Oh, you’re kidding. TONY: She was reassigned there. MCGEE: What am I missing? KATE: Paula Cassidy is a rather attractive agent that DiNozzo drooled all over last year when we were at Gitmo. TONY: Enough talk, Agent Todd. Let’s go.

CUT TO:

INT. PASSAGEWAY – DAY

TONY: Okay, zero two dash thirty two dash eight dash Q-B this way. KATE: The last time we were on a carrier, you were the one that got lost. Not me. TONY: I wasn’t lost. I was momentarily disoriented. KATE: Oh, like you were with Paula at Gitmo. TONY: I’m not the type to kiss and tell, Kate. KATE: It’s not like you to be discreet, Tony. She’s something special, isn’t she? TONY: Is he something special? KATE: Who? TONY: Mister Short Night Harrison. Six is two down this way. KATE: Nope, it’s this way. Trust me. I’m right. (VOICE OVER P.A. B.G.) (KATE AND TONY CONTINUE WALKING) TONY: We have to check-in with the X.O. Why don’t you take care of that? KATE: Why don’t you? TONY: Because I outrank you. That’d be six up and three to the left. KATE: She is something special. (KNOCK ON DOOR) CASSIDY: (V.O.) Enter!

CUT TO:

INT. CASSIDY’S OFFICE – DAY

CASSIDY: I was expecting Gibbs. TONY: Disappointed? Hi! You’ve been back a week. You didn’t call.

CASSIDY: I’ve been gone months. I didn’t get any e-mails. TONY: Well, I figured you’d be too busy to reply. You were at sea with five thousand men. CASSIDY: I had trouble choosing. TONY: I guess I’m a hard act to follow. CASSIDY: Actually, I was afraid of making the same mistake. TONY: Ooh! Wow! Full contact. There. Nice. Let’s start over. I’ll go back outside and do this again.

(DOOR OPENS) CASSIDY: It won’t change anything. (DOOR CLOSES) CASSIDY: Commander Dornan really blew up? TONY: Literally. CASSIDY: There was no accident? TONY: It doesn’t look that way. Was he having trouble with anyone aboard the ship? CASSIDY: Safety officers are generally disliked. They have the authority to stick their nose in anyone’s department. No one can say a word. TONY: That sounds like Gibbs. So Commander Dornan made enemies. CASSIDY: He made an art of it. TONY: Definitely sounds like Gibbs. CASSIDY: So I’ve just been pulling files of all the people he put… TONY: Mmm… CASSIDY: …Put on report. Could be the record for a cruise. TONY: Mm-hmm.

CUT TO:

INT. AUTOPSY ROOM – DAY

GIBBS: How the hell did pure oxygen accumulate in the chest cavity? DUCKY: I do not know, Jethro. I mean, lungs I can understand. The Commander was receiving oxygen through a nasal canula, but the fire originated outside the lungs in the cavity. (SFX: DRAWER SLIDES SHUT) DUCKY: Doctor Byers, you’re early! BYERS: No traffic. Copies of Commander Dornan’s medical records. DUCKY: Oh, thank you. We were finished, weren’t we, Jethro? GIBBS: (BEAT) We were, Ducky. BYERS: Ducky? DUCKY: Yes, it’s something I was tagged with in school in my youth. I used to resent it. Now I quite like it. BYERS: So do I. (BEAT) Well, have you finished the autopsy? DUCKY: Yes. Oh! Yes, there was one question I wanted to ask you. Why did you choose to perform a valve repair as opposed to a valve replacement? BYERS: It was a close call, but Commander Dornan was insistent. If we replaced the valve, he wouldn’t be able to go back on active duty. DUCKY: Yes, true. BYERS: But the team felt that the valve was repairable and it was. Ironic though, isn’t it? We saved his life only to have him die in a freak accident. DUCKY: Oh, I’m afraid it wasn’t an accident.

CUT TO:

INT. SQUAD HEADQUARTERS – DAY

MCGEE: I reviewed the hospital surveillance tapes with security. Between the end of visiting hours and the fire, all but five people can be identified as hospital personnel. I downloaded them onto my laptop. GIBBS: Are you eliminating the hospital personnel, McGee? MCGEE: No, boss. No, definitely not. I’m going to check them all out. In the meantime, I’m going to run the five images through the face-recognition system. Just give me one second and I will have them up on the plasma. GIBBS: Agent Cassidy. CASSIDY: Special Agent Gibbs. TONY: Agent Cassidy pulled files on everyone Commander Dornan put on report. CASSIDY: Not a people friendly guy. GIBBS: Yeah, we’ll have to get into all that. Are you ready? MCGEE: Yeah. My first pass at facial recognition will be against the data base of military personnel and government employees. CASSIDY: I can save you the trouble. That’s Ensign Evan Hayes. He’s in the engineering department on the Kennedy. Commander Dornan rode his ass. GIBBS: More than other young officers? CASSIDY: Yeah. He did not like him. I’m not sure why, but it got so bad that Ensign Hayes verbally threatened him. GIBBS: DiNozzo, get me the Report of Investigation. CASSIDY: There isn’t one. Commander Dornan asked that I not write one up, that he would handle it himself. GIBBS: NCIS Special Agents do not look the other way because they’re asked to, Agent Cassidy. CASSIDY: That wasn’t what happened. GIBBS: Yeah? What happened then? CASSIDY: I felt sorry for the kid. He didn’t deserve the abuse. Some people can handle it and he couldn’t. And I didn’t think it should show up on his record. GIBBS: Get Ensign Hayes in here, Agent Cassidy. DiNozzo, you go with her to make sure. KATE: Is that Dornan’s surgeon with Ducky? GIBBS: Ducky’s older, Kate. He’s not dead.

CUT TO:

INT. PASSAGEWAY – DAY

VOLAT: Ensign Hayes went U-A, Agent Cassidy. TONY: Isn’t most of the ship on leave? VOLAT: Not Ensign Hayes. Commander Dornan put him on port watch. He was restricted to the ship. Two days ago he walked off. This is his quarters. We put out calls. Can’t find him. CASSIDY: Thank you, Chief Volat. We’re going to take another look around.

CUT TO:

INT. QUARTERS – DAY

VOLAT: The scuttlebutt’s that Commander Dornan was murdered. Ensign Hayes did it? CASSIDY: You’ve been in the Navy long enough to know not to listen to scuttlebutt. VOLAT: Yes, Ma'am. But I wouldn’t blame him. Dornan rode him from the minute he came aboard.

TONY: Why do I get the feeling you know why, Chief? VOLAT: Commander Dornan and I both served under Ensign Hayes’ father, Captain Hayes. Dornan was a Lieutenant then who needed to be put in his place. Boy, did the old man do it. This cruise was payback time. TONY: All right, I’ve got to go topside to make a phone call. Thank you.

CUT TO:

INT. NCIS LAB – DAY

ABBY: The E-K-G and the I-VAC recycle at timed intervals. I was able to salvage the last seven minutes of Dornan’s vitals. I thought you could use them. DUCKY: Thank you. ABBY: Are you making a statement with this tie, Ducky? DUCKY: Oh, too much you think? ABBY: Oh, no no no. You can pull it off. So what’s the big event? Dinner date? DUCKY: Too ordinary. ABBY: What then? DUCKY: I thought I’d show her something that reveals who I am. If she gets turned on, too, we haven’t wasted our time. ABBY: You’re the man, Ducky. Why can’t I find someone like you? DUCKY: Well, if this doesn’t work out, I am available.

CUT TO:

INT. POOL AREA – DAY

(SFX: STARTER PISTOL) (SFX: SWIMMING) MORGAN: I’ll be right back.

CUT TO:

EXT. AQUATIC CENTER – DAY

(DOOR OPENS) MORGAN: Evan! What are you still doing here? You promised me you’d go back to your ship. HAYES: I can’t, Coach. MORGAN: Now come on. A two day absence can’t be that serious. HAYES: It’s more than that. MORGAN: What? Did you call your father? HAYES: No. MORGAN: He could help you. HAYES: Commander Dornan put me through hell because of him. MORGAN: You can’t blame everything on your father. You’ve got to take responsibility for yourself. You’re throwing away your career. HAYES: I… I never wanted to be in the Navy. MORGAN: But you are. Promise me you’ll go back to your ship, all right? Set things straight. SWIMMER: Hey coach! We’re ready. MORGAN: All right. All right. I’ll be right there. Hey, you’re going back. HAYES: Hey coach, thanks. MORGAN: Keep me posted, huh?

(MUSIC OUT)

FADE IN:

INT. SQUAD ROOM – DAY

MCGEE: Ensign Hayes was recorded on the hospital security tape at zero two zero three and the explosion that killed Commander Dornan wasn’t until zero three seventeen. Where was he between those times? GIBBS: Find him and you can ask him. Any hits on his cell phone or credit card? MCGEE: Nothing. KATE: Kate, what’d you learn? MCGEE: Dornan punished Hayes with port watch. He was one of the few left on board. Most of the others have scattered. GIBBS: They were away for nine months. KATE: Well, the few I could track down haven’t heard from him. Ensign Hayes was your typical Navy brat. His family moved around a lot when he was young. He went to high school in Alexandria when his father was assigned to the Pentagon. GIBBS: Talk to the parents? KATE: The mother. When Captain Hayes retired they moved to Scottsdale. She seemed a little concerned because she hasn’t heard from her son since the Kennedy made port. GIBBS: E-mail his photo to the locals. TONY: It’s done, Boss. D.C., Virginia, Delaware, and Maryland.

CUT TO:

INT. PASSAGEWAY – DAY

TONY: Do you need to get anything from your sleeping quarters? CASSIDY: What you’re thinking is against regs. TONY: Great. You can handcuff me. CASSIDY: It’s not going to happen, DiNozzo. TONY: (OVERLAP) Why not? CASSIDY: We’re both game players. TONY: Too much alike, huh? CASSIDY: We would drive each other crazy. TONY: Crazy’s good. CASSIDY: Yeah.

CUT TO:

INT. NCIS LAB – NIGHT

MCGEE: Hey, what are you working on? ABBY: Stomach contents. Gastric juices and glandular secretions. MCGEE: Appetizing. ABBY: This is whacked! MCGEE: What… is whacked? ABBY: Something is missing that should be here.

CUT TO:

INT. AUTOPSY ROOM – NIGHT

JIMMY: I’m going to have to lock you up for the night, Commander. (SFX: DRAWER SLIDES SHUT) ABBY: (V.O.) No, don’t leave me in the dark!

JIMMY: Abby, you made me almost --! ABBY: Made you almost what, Jimmy? JIMMY: You know what! ABBY: Where’s Ducky? JIMMY: He left early. ABBY: Can you get him on his cell? JIMMY: Is something wrong? I guess he doesn’t want to be disturbed. (SFX: PHONE RINGS B.G.)

CUT TO:

EXT. BASEMENT – NIGHT

(SFX: GATE SLIDES OPEN) BYERS: When you asked me out, I didn’t expect to be touring the basement of the Smithsonian. DUCKY: Well this is where they prepare the exhibits. Can’t you just feel the history, Janice? BYERS: Where do we start? DUCKY: This is my favorite. These were used by Army surgeons Joseph Woodward and Edward Kurtis at the post mortem of Abraham Lincoln and performed in a guest bedroom at the White House. The Lincoln bedroom, hence the popular misconception. Lincoln never slept there. BYERS: How do you have access to this? DUCKY: I consulted on Lincoln’s autopsy. That is the ball, fired by Booth, that killed Lincoln. These bits of bone are skull fragments. BYERS: You’re an unusual man, Ducky. DUCKY: Would you care for a bite to eat? BYERS: We just got here. DUCKY: Yeah.

(DUCKY UNCOVERS THE TABLE) BYERS: Oh, wow! DUCKY: How does a woman like you end up in the Navy? BYERS: My father’s a retired Chief Petty Officer. DUCKY: You ever contemplate private practice? BYERS: Actually, my obligation to the Navy is up. I’m leaving next month to accept an offer from Columbia Pres. DUCKY: New York. Now that is exciting. (SFX: CRYSTAL RINGS)

CUT TO:

INT. SQUAD ROOM – NIGHT

(SFX: PHONE RINGS) MCGEE: Thanks. (INTO PHONE) NCIS Special Agent McGee speaking. GIBBS: Thanks. MCGEE: (V.O.) Really? When did this happen? GIBBS: What? KATE: Why are you being so tough on Agent Cassidy? GIBBS: I haven’t done anything to her yet. KATE: You made her spend the day, alone, with DiNozzo. GIBBS: She survived. They’re on their way back. MCGEE: Wait boss, one second. (INTO PHONE) Okay, got it. Thank you, Ma'am. (TO GIBBS) Ensign Hayes just made a charge on his credit card. A hotel on Brannick Road….

GIBBS: (OVERLAP) Contact DiNozzo and Cassidy. Have them meet us there. You man the phones. Kate, come on. Let’s go.

CUT TO:

INT. HOTEL LOBBY – NIGHT

GIBBS: Gibbs, NCIS. SPENCER: May I see that please? (BEAT) Okay. What can I do for you, Agent Gibbs? GIBBS: You just checked in an Evan Hayes. What room is he in? SPENCER: That would be illegal to release that information. KATE: We’re investigating a crime and we need to speak with him. SPENCER: Then I suggest you get a warrant. GIBBS: Hayes is in the United States Navy. As you just saw, I’m a Special Agent in the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. I don’t need a civilian warrant. SPENCER: You’re absolutely correct there, Sir. You need the military equivalent, a D-D-Five-Five-Three. GIBBS: Are you a law student? SPENCER: Second year Georgetown. GIBBS: I’m going to give you a lesson tonight in practical law. I’m going to ask for Hayes’ room key. Politely. And you’re going to hand it over. SPENCER: Key? Hotels haven’t used keys in years. KATE: If he has to wake up a judge, nobody is going to be happy. SPENCER: Okay. But announce yourself first. That’s in compliance with the recent Supreme Court Decision.

CUT TO:

INT. HOTEL CORRIDOR – NIGHT

GIBBS: All right, Tony you’re with me. Kate seal off the hallway. Paula you’ve got the service elevator. All right, we announce and then we go in. Okay.

CUT TO:

INT. HOTEL ROOM – NIGHT

(SFX: MUSIC PLAYS B.G.) (DOOR OPENS) GIBBS: (SHOUTS) NCIS! Put your hands up! Put your hands in the air! Up! Up! Up! Get them up! Party’s over. Get up! Where is Ensign Hayes? Put your hands down. One of you checked in as Evan Hayes. DiNozzo, search them and find the credit card. TONY: Let’s see some I.D. TIFFANY: Just give it to them, Jonathan. TONY: Thank you, Jonathan. GIBBS: Where’d you get this? JONATHAN: A guy gave it to me. GIBBS: You’re going to have to do better than that, Jonathan. JONATHAN: Look, I swear, it’s the truth! We were hanging out after swim practice and this strange guy just walked in. TIFFANY: Really spaced. JONATHAN: He…he just handed me the card and said that we should have a good time with it, that he didn’t need it anymore.

TIFFANY: It’s true, Mister. He was trying to get rid of us. JONATHAN: He said he wanted to use the pool. TONY: And you didn’t think that was a little weird? JONATHAN: Well, yeah, but I mean he said we could party with his credit card. GIBBS: Where’s the pool? JONATHAN: Alexandria Central High. GIBBS: Agent Cassidy, you and DiNozzo babysit these people until their parents get here. And collect their car keys. JONATHAN: Ah, come on, man. TONY: Nobody likes a whiner, Jonathan. Nice shirt. (TO CASSIDY) See? I knew we’d end up in a hotel room tonight.

CUT TO:

INT. POOL BUILDING – NIGHT

(MUSIC OVER ACTION/ GIBBS/ KATE AND MCGEE MOVE SLOWLY THROUGH THE BUILDING) GIBBS: Special Agent Gibbs, NCIS! Get down on your stomach. Spread your arms and legs. Quickly. HAYES: I’m done taking orders! GIBBS: Do it now, Ensign Hayes! No, son. You don’t want to do that. HAYES: Then put the weapon down! GIBBS: No, I can’t. I’ve got to cover my partner, isn’t that right, Kate? KATE: Right. HAYES: A woman…. I would never hurt a woman.

GIBBS: Okay. I’m holstering my weapon, okay? All right, your turn. HAYES: I’ve been trying to pull this trigger all night, but I can’t because I’m a coward. GIBBS: You’re not a coward. You just don’t want to die. HAYES: I can’t spend the rest of my life taking his orders! GIBBS: Commander Dornan pushed a lot of people’s buttons, not just yours. HAYES: Commander Dornan? He’s not my problem anymore. This is the only place I ever felt safe. It’s the only place I was ever happy. GIBBS: All right, let’s talk about it. HAYES: It’s too late to talk. GIBBS: Don’t do it. (SFX: GUNSHOT)

(CUT TO BLACK)

FADE IN:

INT. AUTOPSY ROOM – NIGHT

MORGAN: That’s Evan. He was troubled, but I had no idea he was suicidal! GIBBS: He was suspected of murder. MORGAN: Murder?! Evan! No way! KATE: We think he killed a superior officer at the Bethesda Naval Hospital Tuesday. MORGAN: Tuesday? When? KATE: A little after zero three hundred.

MORGAN: Three a.m.? No, that’s impossible. He was with me. He called. He woke me and my wife up. He wasn’t making any sense. I told him I’d come get him. I picked him up in front of the hospital around two. KATE: You must have the wrong time. MORGAN: No, I’m certain. KATE: Well that’s not possible. GIBBS: Agent Todd, I’ll meet you up in the squad room. KATE: (OVERLAP) No, Gibbs! That would mean…! (KATE WALKS O.S.) (SFX: DOORS SLIDE OPEN) GIBBS: How long were you with him? MORGAN: We stayed up talking all night. GIBBS: About what? MORGAN: Mostly his father. They had a lot of problems. GIBBS: Ensign Hayes tell you why he was at the hospital? MORGAN: He said he wanted to confront someone who was giving him a hard time, but he lost his nerve. (MORGAN CRIES)

MUSICAL BRIDGE TO:

INT. SQUAD ROOM – DAY

TONY: Ensign Hayes has an alibi? KATE: What’s going to happen? GIBBS: Nothing. You did everything by the book. KATE: I killed an innocent man, Gibbs! GIBBS: It was suicide by cop, Kate. Get over it. We focused on the wrong guy.

MCGEE: No one went in or out of Commander Dornan’s room between the time the corpsman checked up on him and the explosion. GIBBS: What about the corpsman? MCGEE: I checked his record against the Commander’s. Their paths never crossed until the Commander came in for surgery. GIBBS: There were four others on the security video you couldn’t identify. MCGEE: Right. I’ve cleared three of them. One is still unknown… and I’m on it. GIBBS: Go back to the ship. Go over your files again. CASSIDY: Agent Gibbs, I need to explain. GIBBS: There’s nothing to explain, Agent Cassidy. You didn’t file a report, now two Naval officers are dead. Would it have mattered? We’ll never know. DiNozzo! Go down to the lab. Go over all the physical evidence from the hospital room again. TONY: Uh… what am I looking for? I’ll figure it out.

CUT TO:

INT. AUTOPSY ROOM – DAY

DUCKY: Good morning, Mister Palmer. Oh, is that the Ensign Agent Todd shot? JIMMY: Yes, Sir. DUCKY: Oh dear. JIMMY: Oh, Abby wanted you to see this as soon as you got in. DUCKY: Mister Palmer! I want Commander Dornan’s remains back on the table. (INTO PHONE) Kate, how are you? (BEGIN TELEPHONE INTERCUTS)

(SCENE CUT)

KATE: (INTO PHONE) Well, I shot an innocent man if that gives you any ideas.

(SFX: TONY KNOCKS TO THE MUSIC) (SFX: BEEP TONES) TONY: Whoa, whoa, whoa. ABBY: Stop playing with my equipment! TONY: I haven’t had a woman say that to me in a long time. Sorry. ABBY: You break anything, you’re dead meat. TONY: What are you working on? ABBY: Evidence analysis report, DiNozzo. TONY: I think you misspelled tetrafluoroethylene. I’m a great speller. ABBY: Don’t you have somewhere else to be? TONY: Gibbs told me to go through the physical evidence. ABBY: Oh, he expects you to find something that I didn’t? TONY: Just another set of eyes, Abs.

ABBY: I really need to finish this. TONY: Sorry. Dornan’s personal effects? ABBY: Yeah. TONY: Ooh. Well he didn’t only have heart problems. This guy was blind! Did you find any trace of cigarette ash? ABBY: In an oxygen fire? I don’t think so. Wait! I did find something that might be a cigarette filter. TONY: Abby, I think I know how the oxygen was ignited.

GIBBS: Abby, what do you got for me? ABBY: Not me. Cecile B. DiNozzo. TONY: Stalag Seventeen. G.I. uses a cigarette as a time fuse to blow up a Nazi train. Come on, guys. Don’t try this at home, McGee. It’s for grownups.

GIBBS: DiNozzo (SFX: TONY SMOKES/ COUGHS) TONY: How do people do this? Okay, the cigarette becomes a time fuse. Check this. (SFX: MATCHES LIGHT) TONY: Uh-huh. In real time it takes about twelve minutes for it to reach the matches. ABBY: It’s cool, huh? The killer placed it next to Dornan’s side under the tented sheet, next to the open oxygen line. TONY: Then he left the room. GIBBS: Who was there twelve minutes before the fire? MCGEE: Doctor Byers. KATE: She was the one who murdered him?! DUCKY: He wasn’t murdered. Commander Dornan died as a result of his surgery. Doctor Byers made it look as if he was murdered. KATE: Well who was she trying to frame? DUCKY: No one. She was covering her mistake. In nineteen ninety-five, she was the subject of a malpractice investigation on a heart valve repair almost identical to the one she performed on the Commander. ABBY: So how do you know that he was dead before the fire started? DUCKY: I compared Dornan’s preview E-K-G to the last I-VAC recording. That heartbeat wasn’t his. GIBBS: She still could have murdered him. DUCKY: Well, not intentionally. GIBBS: Doctor… DUCKY: You trust my gut on this one.

BYERS: Dornan was in pain and demanded to see me. I rushed to the hospital, did an echocardiogram and realized not replacing the valve was a mistake. It was failing. DUCKY: Why didn’t you operate immediately? BYERS: When I told him he became hysterical. He went into cardiac arrest. I tried to resuscitate him, but couldn’t. A second failed valve repair would end my career, and the job at Columbia Pres. I panicked. I tried to cover up.

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INT. HOSPITAL ROOM – FLASHBACK

BYERS: (V.O.) I placed the EKG sensors on my own chest. I turned off the audible alarm, cleared the record data, and reset the time/date stamp ahead fifteen minutes. I disconnected the oxygen tube from his nasal canula and inserted it into his incision so the oxygen could accumulate in his chest cavity. Then using one of his own cigarettes and a match book… I placed it on the bed.

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INT. WAITING ROOM – DAY

BYERS: On my way out I stopped by the nurses’ station and told them that I had sedated him and he was resting, and to check on him in a half hour. DUCKY: Janice, you didn’t kill him. BYERS: But I did… by not replacing the valve in the first place.

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INT. SQUAD ROOM – DAY

CASSIDY: (V.O./FILTERED) This is Paula. Leave a message. TONY: (INTO PHONE) Hey. It’s me. Come on, just ‘cause you’re pissed at Gibbs is no reason not to return my calls. Right? So dial the number ‘cause you’ve got it. Okay. (HANGS UP PHONE) MCGEE: Sometimes you’ve just got to know when to let go, Tony. TONY: You don’t really expect me to take advice about women from you, do you? MCGEE: I could stay here and argue the point, but I have a date. GIBBS: So? Now what? DUCKY: I don’t know. GIBBS: You can’t let any woman affect you like this, Duck. Especially one you didn’t know that well. DUCKY: My concerns are more immediate. I have two tickets to the opera tonight. She was going to accompany me. Jethro? GIBBS: No. DUCKY: I wonder if Kate would be interested. Do you know where she is? TONY: No.